I am now just but a ghost;
a sack of famished bones
...
I moved beyond the woods
Fearing that mine mind would shudder
At the horrors it clothed inside.
...
Of Old Leaders And Contorted Consciences
I am now just but a ghost;
a sack of famished bones
enclosed only by a thin leatherly hide;
a dangling, flaking biltong of guilt
and yet once I was a towering giant
hovering eerily above,
heroic in my gestures
and aggressive in my victories
I was a king to few
and a god to many
who cowered cowardly at the sight of my scars.
I prided myself of winning wars
and the intrigue of my trickery
99 tricks I had
each furnished to thoroughly disable my foe,
shred him to the floor,
disregard the wails of the masses
and scatter the dust for all to see and awe
and so I stumbled-
yet my vanity forbade me from seeing
that my grave deep I had dug
with every fiery word I spat
"Shame, shame, shame! "
it thus came swiftly upon me
bitter as Job's trials
and searing like the flames of Joan
then - suddenly -
my eyes bore the fiery flash.
I had been blind all along!